Northwestern adds transfer QB Ryan Hilinski

it took a couple years, but Northwestern finally got its man in Ryan Hilinski.

The quarterback from South Carolina announced his intention to transfer to Northwestern with a tweet on Tuesday.

The Wildcats aggressively recruited Hilinski, a four-star Class of 2019 quarterback, out of Orange (Calif.) Lutheran High School. But they missed out on him when he signed with the Gamecocks.

Now, two years later, the Wildcats landed their target as a transfer.

Hilinski will certainly compete for the starting job this coming season and will likely have the inside track. He spent two years at South Carolina -- one as a starter -- and will have three years of eligibility remaining thanks to 2020 being a "free" year.

WildcatReport reported Hiliinski's imminent transfer on The Rock premium message board two weeks ago.

Hilinski was among Northwestern's biggest targets in the class of 2019. But the Wildcats got an early commitment from three-star QB Cale Millen in December of 2017 and looked to be set at QB for that cycle. Hilinski eventually committed to South Carolina on April 4, 2018.

Millen suddenly decommitted from Northwestern just a couple weeks later to commit to Oregon, leaving the Wildcats without a QB. They eventually landed Hunter Johnson, a former five-star quarterback and a transfer from Clemson, a few months later.

But Northwestern and head coach Pat Fitzgerald made a strong impression on Hilinski during the recruiting process. So when Hilinski decided he wanted a change of scenery, the program was a natural landing place.

Northwestern has a need for a QB after 2021 VRBO Citrus Bowl MVP Peyton Ramsey announced that he would be ending his college career to focus on the NFL draft after one year in Evanston as a grad transfer. So Fitzgerald turned back to recruiting Hilinski, this time out of the transfer portal.

Hilinski entered the portal on Dec. 30, after a weird sophomore season at South Carolina where he did not start a game and threw only six passes after starting 11 games as a true freshman.

Hilinski made a splash in his second career game for the Gamecocks in 2019, throwing for 324 yards and two touchdowns against Alabama. He completed 36 of 57 passes (63.2%) with one interception and kept South Carolina in the game with the Tide for two and a half quarters, getting as close as 24-13 until Devonta Smith (you've probably heard of him) burned the Gamecocks' defense for a pair of touchdowns to break it open.

Three weeks later, Hilinski went into Athens, Ga., and knocked off the Bulldogs, ranked third in America at the time. The true freshman signal caller completed 15 of 20 passes (75%) for 116 yards and touchdown. Hilinski split snaps in that game with Dakareon Joyner, a talented runner who brought an element to the offense that Hilinski did not.

Hilinski finished his freshman season completing 58.1% of his passes for 2,357 yards, 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.

While Hilinski seemed to be established as the QB of the future for South Carolina, his career took a strange detour in 2020. Mike Bobo was hired from Colorado State to be the Gamecocks' offensive coordinator, and when he came to South Carolina he brought graduate transfer quarterback Collin Hill with him.

Hill ended up winning the starting quarterback job, with Bobo citing his knowledge of the offense as one of the main reasons for the decision. Hill struggled, however, and, after eight games, was benched. But South Carolina didn't hand the reins back to Hilinski, instead going with freshman Luke Doty to start the final two games.

Clearly something didn't work between Hilinski and Bobo this year. Both of them, as it turned out, left Columbia after the season: Hilinski entered the portal, while Bobo took the Auburn offensive coordinator job. There were even rumors that Hilinski would return to South Carolina after Bobo's departure.

Hilinski, a 6-foot-3, 225-pounder, has a strong arm but is not particularly mobile, so it remains to be seen how well he'll adapt to offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian's offense, which requires the quarterback to run on occasion. Unlike he did with Ramsey, Fitzgerald may not give Hilinski the keys to the offense right away; Johnson and Andrew Marty, who already know the offense and started games for the Wildcats in 2019, also to figure to be in the competition for the starting job.

The Wildcats find themselves in an eerily similar situation to the one they faced before the 2019 season, after quarterback Clayton Thorson led the Wildcats to a Big Ten Championship game appearance and bowl win in 2018 before graduating. In 2020, Ramsey accomplished the same feats before exiting himself. In 2019, a former highly touted recruit, Johnson, was presumed to take over the job as a transfer; this year, that transfer is Hilinski.

Northwestern hopes that the transition goes better than it did in 2019, when Johnson, Marty, Aidan Smith and TJ Green (who was injured in the opener and missed the rest of the season) all played QB for the Wildcats in a disastrous 3-9 campaign. That prompted Fitzgerald to find Ramsey in the portal and settle the position for 2020.

Now, after one season, Fitzgerald is again looking for an answer at the most important position on the field.

Hilinski will not enter the program as the polished, veteran QB that Ramsey was coming into the 2020 season. Ramsey was a graduate who had started 23 games and thrown for more than 6,500 yards in three years at Indiana, and he already knew Big Ten defenses and personnel. Hilinski will have to learn a new system, as well as an entirely new conference.

But the talent is there.